This year's advent calendar at my house: a paper curtain. i was thinking about those bead curtains hanging in doorways, and my house has a non-essential doorway off the dining room that was perfect for it. It might also be good in front of a window or even a little bit away from a wall. I liked the doorway because it swung and twisted in any little breeze.

so here's the summary: my son made the xmas pixel art last year at my request, 25x40. I chopped up lots of colored paper (from michael's, i would describe as light cardstock) into one inch squares using a paper cutter; i clipped each square once from a side to the center; i slid together two squares to make it 3-D; then i hot-glued them onto nylon "invisible thread" hanging from a washer. For the advent calendar they found one string per day and hung it in its correct place (both the string and the holder have numbers).

and now, more detail.25x40 is 1000, so that is 2000 one inch squares of paper. As i said, i used cardstock from Michael's. Using the paper cutter went relatively quickly, but the clip & fit together part was a wee bit tedious. Fortunately that could be done while watching tv - saw a bunch of episodes of Highlander while i worked I had counted the squares of each color, and numbered the columns on my grid... but i still had to go back to michael's twice to get more paper because i somehow miscalculated.

Next, glue the paper pieces to the strings. I tied a long piece of invisible thread to the washer, then put sticky dots at the top with its column number. I had a corkboard where i carefully lined up several pushpins along a horizontal line to simulate the holder. I glued each square on with two dots of hot glue, leaving approx 1/16 inch between the squares. Once you have done the first string, that is now your guide. For every other string, hang it next to the original guide and follow the guide as closely as possible. My holder is wood with screws placed every 1 1/16 inch. Didn't need to look nice because it's in an eensy hallway where no one looks up.

Random notes: - The blue and green i chose look too similar (same saturation?) and from some angles look the same. - The invisible thread i used was very thin, and a little hard to work with. My kids walked through the curtain a bunch because it is fun but one of the strings got stretched out and i had to redo part of it. Still, the thin nylon means that each string will twirl at the slightest air movement which is great. I will try something slightly heavier next time (if there is a next time!). The invisible thread actually stretched a teeny bit just from the weight of the paper and glue. - My original idea was to use wooden beads, probably flat disks which i could spraypaint in groups. But that turned out to be too expensive. Would have sounded great when you walk through it, though.

Holy cow, that must have taken a long time. It's a great idea and is super cute! I've actually been working on a bead type curtain on and off for over a year, but it's been slow going because I didn't have a good way to attach the strings. And I couldn't figure out the right words to google what I was looking for...I love the washer idea! Thanks for sharing!